Barriers to women’s leadership in business
In this (extensive!) selection from George Starcher’s latest publication, “Toward a Partnership of Women and Men: Source of Excellence in a Global Economy”, we explore the question of the real, existing barriers to women’s full participation in leadership postions.
After a figure-backed demonstration that “women are the equals of men in all fields of endeavour starting with leadership”, Starcher examines the question of whether women and men’s leadership styles are actually different (yes, but slightly), and arrives at the following question:
Having seen in the previous section that real differences in leadership style are insignificant, then why are there so few women in the executive ranks and among managers of our large corporations throughout the world? After all, women account for well over 50% of university graduates in Europe, over 60% of PhDs, and between 20 and 25% of MBAs. In some sectors such as professional services, between 40 and 45% of new recruits are women. … [Yet] the percentage of women in senior management roles in countries such as the UK and France is around 15%, and it is much lower (fewer than 5 %) among members of executive committees and corporate officers (Chairman, CEO, COO, CFO, ExVP..)
Corporate Culture
Often, corporate cultures further reinforce the handicaps many women feel in striving for equal opportunities for development and advancement. The ways of corporate socialisation, the internal language and vocabulary speak and act with, the working hours, the ways that managers get value recognition, the corporate role models to emulate – in general, “the ways in which we do things around here” are all heavily influenced by male created and perpetuated dominator traditions. Unquestionably, respecting and promoting feminine values and needs in the workplace will require serious changes in many corporate cultures. According to International Labour Office, corporate culture is a fundamental reason for women’s absence from management and leadership positions in large companies. One survey in 2002 from The Leaders Edge revealed that 39% of respondents ranked corporate culture as the primary reason for leaving their companies. The second reason (31%) was their desire for a more balanced life and flexible working hours.
Cultural Stereotypes
Cultural stereotyping and preconceptions about women’s roles and capabilities are among the major barriers to the advancement of women. … Many senior women leaders feel that stereotyping occurs frequently in organisations and creates prejudiced and therefore flawed impressions about their leadership capabilities. These false impressions are a major reason why women are not chosen for top leadership positions, and why a gender leadership gap exists.
The heart of the dilemma has two components. The first is the stereotype of the male leader: i.e. good leaders must be “agentic”, that is, aggressive, decisive, rational, objective, ambitious, competitive .. because leaders have traditionally been men and they valued such characteristics in their leaders. This preconception often makes women appear to be ill-suited to be leaders. Second, those women who display some or all of these attributes themselves are often perceived by men and many women to be overly aggressive, instead of assertive, and therefore are not well-liked. As one authority said, “Many mainstream organizations equate stereotypical masculine traits with images of competence and leadership, and women pay a price…. The result is that women who are tough, confident, and decisive are demonized as bitchy, strident, and insensitive. By the same token, women who are sensitive, relational, and warm are discounted as weak, passive, and too nice. Either way, women are seen by some as unfit for leadership roles.
Catalyst, the non-profit organisation working to advance opportunities for women in business, has produced several reports examining the pervasive and damaging effects of gender stereotyping in the workplace. According to Catalyst gender stereotypes lead companies to routinely underestimate and underutilize women’s leadership talent. … “Ultimately, it’s not women’s leadership styles that need to change. Only when organizations take action to address the impact of gender stereotyping will they be able to capitalize on the ‘full deck’ of talent.” The study concludes with three connected, but distinct, dilemmas facing women leaders today:
Women leaders are perceived as “never just right.” If women business leaders act consistently with gender stereotypes, they are considered too soft. If they go against gender stereotypes, they are considered too tough.
Women often face higher standards than men leaders and are rewarded with less. Often they must work doubly hard to achieve the same level of recognition as men leaders for the same level of work and to prove they can lead.
When women exhibit traditionally valued leadership behaviours such as assertiveness, they tend to be seen as competent but not personable or well-liked. Yet those who do adopt a more stereotypically feminine style are liked but are not seen as having valued leadership skills.
On a more positive note, another recent study found that “Considered as a whole, our results suggest that stereotypes about women may be changing. Male managers, in particular, seem to be characterizing women as less passive and submissive and more confident, ambitious, analytical, and assertive. In short, male managers – the individuals who serve as the gatekeepers to most executive suites – are rating women as more leader-like than they did 15 and 30 years ago.
The Glass Ceiling
… These findings seem to support the conclusions of another study by Eagly & Carli that found that “when you put all the pieces together, a new picture emerges for why women don’t make it into the C-suite – that is, the key corporate positions reporting to the CEO. It’s not the glass ceiling, but the sum of many obstacles along the way.” They go on to say that the times have changed and that the metaphor of the glass ceiling is now more wrong than right. They reason that the glass ceiling fails to incorporate the complexity and variety of challenges that women can and do face in their leadership journeys. Women, they argue, are not turned away only as they reach the penultimate stage of a distinguished career; they disappear in various numbers at many points leading up to that stage, hence the suggested metaphor of the labyrinth. The authors also remind us that “Women continue to be the ones who interrupt their careers, take more days off, and work part-time. As a result, they have fewer years of job experience and fewer hours of employment per year, which slows their career progress and reduces their earnings.”
Work/Life Imbalance
This brings us to the third barrier for the advancement of women to senior executive positions: the pressure of family responsibilities. Decision makers often assume that mothers have domestic responsibilities that make it inappropriate to promote them to demanding positions. But even more important about the impact of family care is that it leaves women much less time for socializing with colleagues and building and maintaining professional and company networks. Studies of career paths of fast-track managers show that time and effort devoted to building social capital, that is, to socializing, politicking, and interacting with outsiders can be important to their advancement. Unfortunately for women, the influential networks are composed mainly of men and their activities are more often than not based on male themes. We will return to this theme in the next chapter on Best Practices. We should add however that work/life imbalance is becoming a problem for retention of men as well as women.
Outdated Human Resource Policies and Practices
Like so many other factors that impede the advancement of women, HR policies and practices often have been developed and administered by men for men without due consideration of the needs of women. It would take a book to fully develop this theme, but the processes for career planning, management of high potential people, task force assignments, compensation, flexible schedules, and provision of adequate and affordable child care facilities do not respond adequately in most large companies to the needs of women with families or other compelling needs. Furthermore, men are often favoured for key line positions and overseas assignments as well as for highly visible task forces. Management development and education programmes usually ignore the study of issues more specific to women, perhaps in part because women are often not given equal access to these internal and external programmes. Of particular significance are the linear career path practices that leave limited career flexibility. While this policy affects both women and men, it obviously represents a much larger hurdle for aspiring women managers.
Personal Reasons
A recent report, ‘The leaking pipeline: Where are our female leaders?’, (PriceWaterhousCoopers, 2008), based upon interviews with 79 women leaders in that professional firm, cited several personal reasons for the small number of women leaders, not only in PwC but in many professional firms. These personal reasons include the following: reticence to self promote and to take risks, career interruptions because of family responsibilities, lack of understanding their company’s politics, feeling isolated and not supported through coaching or mentoring, and lack of confidence and belief in oneself.
This leaking pipeline described earlier turns into a broken pipeline when it comes to women in science, many of whom have the potential to manage and lead. According to a recent article 41% of highly qualified scientists, engineers, and technologists (in the USA) in the lower ranks of career ladders are women. But the drop-outs are huge. Over time 52% of these talented women quit their jobs, and a large percentage in the mid to late thirties. Why do they leave? First and foremost, the hostility of the workplace culture; second, the dispiriting sense of isolation; third, a strong disconnect between women’s preferred work rhythms and those of men. Also cited were the prominence of “extreme jobs” and the mystery surrounding career advancement. Several solutions offered by leading edge companies: setting a target of 25% of women in the senior management team; appointing “sponsors” for high potential women; mentoring by senior executives.
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All these barriers may paint a bleak picture for women in business. The next chapter, however, looks at business ‘best practices’ that help surmount these obstacles.
October 27th, 2008 at 04:17
As Starcher notes – “the ways in which we do things around here” have long been heavily male influenced. I see evidence that this thing I call “masculine backdrop” is starting to fade a bit, as confirmed by his reference to “another recent study” that stereotypes about women may be changing – and so the men who still tend to make the gatekeeping decisions are “rating women as more leader-like than they did 15 or 30 years ago.”
All good news. This shift may feel threatening to men at first consideration, but as a business bottomline (whcih men are still very interested in) – more balanced leadership makes extremely good sense, especially with the ways our global culture is changing.
One more thing worth noting: The fact that women have less time to socialize with colleagues in the traditional manner (i.e. male way of building networks etc) does not count them out altogether. Rather, it reflects this balancing out as well – women’s ways of connecting may not be so front and center or “announced” to the world, but you best believe they are making incredible connections all along the way. Women actually don’t need typical networking events to do their thing.
Fascinating work by Starcher – and I’m so glad to see this being discussed in this manner.
November 21st, 2008 at 11:23
[...] on gender equality in business, “Toward a Partnership of Women and Men“. The last entry discussed the obstacles towards women’s participation in leadership positions. Now we are [...]